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Posts Tagged ‘Lorri Galloway’

Virtually every political analysis of the City of Anaheim references the split between Anaheim Hills and the Flatlands.

A closer look at the 2014 election results confirms that split – but in counterintuitive fashion. Mayor Tom Tait won 61.7% of the Anaheim Hills vote in his re-election bid but less than half the vote in the Flatlands, though even then, this is a 42.5% victory margin for Tait in Anaheim Hills versus 24.1% in the Flatlands. Lucille Kring beat Lorri Galloway by 6.4% in Anaheim Hills, but Galloway beat Kring by 5.1% in the Flatlands.

In fairness to Kring, she scored fairly consistently across the city with only a 0.3% differential in Hills versus Flatlands. The big difference was for Galloway whose Flatland votes were nearly double the percentage of her votes in the Hills, with 24.6% in the Flatlands versus 12.8% in the Hills.

More intuitively, three of the candidates did better where they live than the other part of town: Kring and Fitzgerald did better on their home turf in the Flatlands while Tait did better in the Hills, where he lives. It looks like Galloway’s neighbors don’t like her, as she is an Anaheim Hills resident but did far better in the Flatlands than the Hills.

Anaheim Hills

Tom Tait

9945

61.7%

Lucille Kring

3093

19.2%

Lorri Galloway

2071

12.8%

Denis Fitzgerald

1018

6.3%

Flatlands

Tom Tait

14171

48.7%

Lorri Galloway

7164

24.6%

Lucille Kring

5664

19.5%

Denis Fitzgerald

2072

7.1%

Anaheim Hills vs. Flatlands

Tom Tait

+13.0%

Lorri Galloway

-11.8%

Lucille Kring

-0.3%

Denis Fitzgerald

-0.8%

Flatlander James Vanderbilt was the top vote-getter for City Council in Anaheim Hills; he came in third in the Flatlands behind Hills resident Kris Murray and Flatlander Gail Eastman. The first through third place spread of Murray, Eastman, and Vanderbilt was 2% in the Hills and 1.1% in the Flatlands. Nevertheless, Vanderbilt beat Eastman in Anaheim Hills by 333 votes while Eastman beat Vanderbilt in the Flatlands by 130 votes, thereby giving Vanderbilt his 203-vote citywide victory.

Anaheim Hills

James D. Vanderbilt

3719

22.8%

Kris Murray

3674

22.6%

Gail Eastman

3386

20.8%

Doug Pettibone

1810

11.1%

Jose F. Moreno (1)

1492

9.2%

Jerry O’Keefe

1399

8.6%

Donna Michelle Acevedo

502

3.1%

Jose Moreno (2)

303

1.9%

Flatlands

Kris Murray

12533

20.2%

Gail Eastman

11952

19.3%

James D. Vanderbilt

11822

19.1%

Jose F. Moreno (1)

10029

16.2%

Doug Pettibone

5499

8.9%

Jerry O’Keefe

4845

7.8%

Donna Michelle Acevedo

2686

4.3%

Jose Moreno (2)

2673

4.3%

Anaheim Hills vs. Flatlands

James D. Vanderbilt

+3.7%

Kris Murray

+2.4%

Gail Eastman

+1.5%

Jose F. Moreno (1)

-7.0%

Doug Pettibone

+2.2%

Jerry O’Keefe

+0.8%

Donna Michelle Acevedo

-1.2%

Jose Moreno (2)

-2.4%

The number that jumps out is Jose F. Moreno’s 7% gap in the Hills. (Either way, though, Moreno fell 3% short of the top two slots in both the Hills and the Flatlands.) While at first, some might instinctively claim race as the reason for his 7% drop in the Hills, but before the polls closed, Matt Cunningham at Anaheim Blog found a more innocuous reason: the old-fashioned hard work of campaigning. The title of Cunningham’s blog and the photo he showed from Moreno’s campaign office explain it all, so here they are: “Jose Moreno Campaign Ignoring Anaheim Hills”

In this photo, the Moreno campaign’s office door literally shut out Anaheim Hills.

Measure L, the vote-by-district measure, won by an unexpectedly large margin. It was widely expected that the measure would have a tough time in Anaheim Hills. It did not, but Anaheim Hills did support it by a weaker margin than the Flatlands did, so in the Anaheim split did go with expectations, rather than against them, but simply in a negligible percentage. Measure L won 64% of Anaheim Hills votes while it won 72% in the Flatlands.

Measure L

Anaheim Hills

Flatlands

Yes

10213

64%

20660

72%

No

5750

36%

8231

28%

Measure M, the measure to grow the City Council by two seats, won in unexpectedly close fashion. In the Flatlands, it won 56% of the vote while in Anaheim Hills, it won with a much closer 51% of the vote.

Sidhu filed a Form 501 (Candidate Intention Statement) for the 68th Assembly District when opening that committee. On the Form 501, Sidhu also indicated he would not accept the voluntary expenditure limit of $544,000 in the primary and $953,000 in the general election.

The only catch with a 2014 bid for AD-68 is a gentleman by the name of Don Wagner.

There are four possibilities for this committee:

Sidhu is crazy enough to challenge Wagner, who would cream Sidhu in the June 2014 primary

Sidhu is banking on Wagner running for CD-45 in 2014 (win or lose, Wagner would have to give up his Assembly seat if he chose to run for CD-45 since the elections for the two seats occur concurrently)

Sidhu is using the Assembly committee as a placeholder to raise funds for another office (Sidhu would then presumably launch a surprise by filing for another office at the last minute and then slide the money over)

Sidhu is using the 2014 committee as a placeholder for a future vacancy in the AD-68 seat in 2015 (Wagner leaves the seat early) or 2016 (Wagner terms out)

Sidhu has a 2-3 record in the five times he’s sought elected office.

In 2010, Sidhu ran unsuccessfully for 4th District Supervisor, losing to Supervisor Shawn Nelson 63.1%-36.9%. Just 0.1% of AD-68 voters live in the 4th Supervisorial District.

In the 2008 general election, Sidhu was the top vote-getter for Anaheim City Council, winning 23.2% of the vote. 16.8% of AD-68 voters live in the City of Anaheim, which is the third-largest city in AD-68.

The newest blogger on this site had a post go up early this morning that gave an analysis of the 65th Assembly District that had everything but reality included in it. As someone that lives in the 65th Assembly District I can think of at least 3 candidates that would finish ahead of Young Kim and Henry Charoen. 2 of these candidates are already rumored to be running.

Steve Hwangbo- La Palma Councilman

Bruce Whitaker- Fullerton Councilman

Lucille Kring- Anaheim Councilwoman

Miller Oh likely would have been the favorite to be the nominee in 2014 had he not been charged with lying to avoid paying child support. This story makes it unlikely that he will even consider entering into the race to even test the waters.

Chris Norby was also rumored to be running to take back his old seat but my reaction to hearing this was that it would be a disaster. Norby was a train wreck that carried enough baggage to cost him a Republican seat. Republicans need to find candidates that do not carry a lot of personal baggage if they want to gain back any revevancy in California.

Young Kim comes across as a political opportunist by moving to Fullerton seemingly for the sole purpose of running for AD 65. I remember a couple of other people from the ritzy part of Anaheim making a move to run for an office similar to AD 65 in 2010. Ask Harry Sidhu and Lorri Galloway how that move worked out for them.

Henry Charoen and Steve Hwangbo both have a tough battle coming from the smallest portion of AD 65 (La Palma), and they will both need to spend somewhere near $250,000 (at least) to advance into the November election agains Shron Quirk-Silva.

This leads me to believe that contrary to what Dominus might think Young Kim is far from being the front-runner.

On a side note what the heck is Long Pham thinking running for SD 34? I hope that he realizes that this will end no better than his bid for AD 68 (Mansoor), AD 72 (Allen), and all of the other races that he has thrown his name on the ballot for. Even Steve Rocco must think he is nuts for running in this race.

There’s been much discussion about the ACLU lawsuit against the City of Anaheim to force Councilmembers to be elected by district rather than at large, as voters in the entire city vote for every Councilmember. The lawsuit cites the California Voting Rights Act of 2002’s requirements for racial representation on City Councils. Anaheim is 53% Latino.

As Gustavo Arellano at the OC Weeklynoted, Anaheim had an 80% nonwhite Council as recently as 2006, with Latino Councilmembers Richard Chavez and Bob Hernandez (both elected in 2002), Asian Councilmembers Lorri Galloway and Harry Sidhu (both elected in 2004), and white Mayor Curt Pringle (elected in 2002). I might also note Lou Lopez served on the Council from 1994-1998 when he gave up his Council seat to run unsuccessfully for Supervisor.

With the election of white Councilmembers Jordan Brandman and Lucille Kring replacing termed out Asian Councilmembers Lorri Galloway and Harry Sidhu, Anaheim has its first all-white City Council in a decade. What impact this will have on the lawsuit against Orange County’s largest city is to be seen. Brandman has asked to agendize a possible lawsuit settlement for the next Council meeting .

Meanwhile in the County’s second-largest city, Santa Ana has had an all-Latino Council since 2006. With six council wards, each Councilmember (other than the directly-elected Mayor) represents 16% of the city. However, Santa Ana elects its Councilmembers at-large from these wards. In other words, voters in the entire city still pick the Councilmember representing each ward.

Santa Ana’s Asian (mostly Vietnamese) population is highly concentrated in the western portion of the City.

In the redistricting plan adopted at the beginning of 2012, Ward 6’s border with Ward 3 moved south, and increased the Ward 3 Asian population by 16%. The relatively square Ward 4 became much more rectangular by yielding most of its western territory to Ward 6 and picking up the southeastern portion of Ward 6. This increased the Ward 4 Asian population by a whopping 209%. However, these changes decreased the Ward 6 Asian population by 27%.

Prior to the 2012 redistricting, 46% of all Santa Ana Asians resided in Ward 6, 24% lived in Ward 3, and just 5% in Ward 4. With the new districts, just 33% live in Ward 6, 27% live in Ward 3, and 17% live in Ward 4.

The California Voting Rights Act of 2002 states that a violation “is established if it is shown that racially polarized voting occurs in elections for members of the governing body of the political subdivision or in elections incorporating other electoral choices by the voters of the political subdivision.” It goes on to say, “The fact that members of a protected class are not geographically compact or concentrated may not preclude a finding of racially polarized voting…but may be a factor in determining an appropriate remedy.”

In practice, the most common remedy under the California Voting Rights Act of 2002 has been to have ward elections in which voters only vote one Councilmember to represent their ward and do not vote for any other Councilmembers (basically, ward elections make city council elections a lot more like supervisorial elections, legislative elections, and U.S. House elections).

Anaheim is being sued for violating the California Voting Rights Act of 2002 because citywide voters have not elected a Latino to the current City Council. Could Santa Ana be sued for violating the California Voting Rights Act of 2002 because citywide voters have never not elected an Asian to the City Council in 31 years and the Council’s redistricting plan presents a major “cracking” of the Asian population?

151,311 voters live in the City of Anaheim: 10,196 voters live in Ed Royce’s 39th Congressional District, 27,431 live in John Campbell’s 45th Congressional District, and 113,684 live in Loretta Sanchez’s 46th Congressional District. You’ve seen Emami’s endless mail count on the Anaheim City Council race, but he has the good fortune to be one of the 27,431 Anaheim voters in CD-45. This is a tale of the mailboxes for the 10,196 Anaheim voters in CD-39.

(For those of you wondering, Gail Eastman lives in Sanchez’s CD-46, Harry Sidhu lives in Royce’s CD-39, and Lorri Galloway, Kris Murray, and Tom Tait live in Campbell’s CD-45. For those of you wondering for even more info, Steve Chavez Lodge lives in Campbell’s CD-45 while Lucille Kring, John Leos, and Jordan Brandman all live in Sanchez’s CD-46.)

Before I get into the mail, I should note there are precinct walkers and phone bankers from both camps scurrying and calling across CD-39.

An OC Political friend passed on a transcript he made of a phone call he received from the Jay Chen campaign in October. The content of this script is clearly geared toward Republicans, and the OC Political friend who transcribed this call is a high-propensity Republican in a pure Republican household.

Here’s the transcript…

Hi. Good afternoon. My name is Andrew and I am a volunteer with the Jay Chen for Congress Campaign.

I’m calling you today to tell you a little bit about Jay and about his campaign for congress in your district.

Jay is a small businessman, a school board member and US Naval Reserves intelligence officer who is running to represent you in Congress.

Unlike his opponent, Ed Royce, Jay volunteered to serve our country and he will protect our veterans when they come home.

Jay was recruited right out of Harvard University to work for Bain and Company, a section of the successful Bain Capital, and he has valuable experience balancing the books and improving results without raising taxes.

Jay is clearly the right person to serve this district in Washington. For more information about Jay or our campaign, please visit our website at chenforcongress.com. And since you are registered to vote by mail your ballots will be arriving around October 8th. Please remember to vote and sent them back in.

Thank you for very much your time and I hope you vote for Jay in the upcoming November election.

In 2002 Jay joined Bain & Company, a global business consulting firm. While at Bain he worked closely with top executives of Fortune 500 companies to develop and implement crucial business strategies. He managed the roll-out and evaluation of new products for a global logistics company and analyzed the cost-savings for a mergers and acquisition in the technology space with a combined value of over $1 billion. Jay believes his financial and business experience will be of great value to the school board, which manages an operating budget of over $360 million dollars and nearly 3000 employees.

Anyone else find it fun that Democrat Jay Chen is touting his Bain experience while Republican Mitt Romney is getting trashed for his Bain experienced by national Democrats?

Now, on to the money: From July 1 to October 17, Royce spent $1,232,479 while Chen spent $406,351. However, Super PAC America Shining (run by Chen’s brother) has spent $762,316, with $65,894 supporting Chen and $696,162 against Royce.

In other words, between America Shining and Jay Chen, the pro-Chen/anti-Royce spending since July 1 has reached $1,458,478 while Ed Royce has spent $1,232,479.

For both candidates, over 60% of their direct contributions came from individual citizens. However, if you account for America Shining, the pro-Chen/anti-Royce money received has been 52% from PACs, and 33% from individual citizens, while pro-Royce/anti-Chen money that’s been received is 62% from individual citizens and 36% from PACs.

While Emami religiously scans each piece of mail that falls into his hand, I’m just going to take a picture of all the mail. For my father, who is likely in the most coveted demographic group in all of CD-39 (high-propensity Asian independent), this is what $2.7 million of campaign spending looks like:

My poor father was inundated with CD-39 mail

He’s received 36 mailers, and there’s still three more mailing days before Election Day (today, tomorrow, and Monday). I “only” received 15 mailers, and my Republican mother “only” received 8 mailers. Inexplicably, my independent sister only got 1 mailer (it was pro-Royce).

I should note my 52-year-old father was not pleased to receive the America Shining piece entitled, “Senior News.”

Here are other ways to look at the 36 mailers sent to Dad:

Stacked on top of each other, they are 1/2 inch thick.

They weigh a combined 1 lb. 7 oz.

Laid end to end, they are 41 feet, 3 inches long.

They have achieved near-perfect parity in Dad’s collection:

18 from Royce’s side, 18 from Chen’s side

6 pro-Royce, 4 pro-Chen

12 anti-Chen, 14 anti-Royce

From my father’s mail: For every pro-Royce, there were exactly two anti-Chen pieces. For every pro-Chen piece, there were more than three anti-Royce pieces. While both sides have sent virtually the same amount of mail and both have been pretty negative, Chen’s side has sent out more negative mail and less positive mail than Royce’s side.

Apparently, as registered Republicans, my mother and I were each ignored by Chen. All 15 of my mailers and all 8 of hers were from Royce. I received 6 pro-Royce and 9 anti-Chen. Mom received 2 pro-Royce and 6 anti-Chen.

The anti-Chen pieces are making an impact on regular voters: one of my mother’s co-workers dislikes Chen because he seems so creepy because he’s always behind sunglasses in his pictures. None of Chen’s photos have him behind sunglasses, except the one being used on Royce’s anti-Chen pieces.

In CD-39, postal workers and mailhouses are getting together to throw a big party about the post offices saved from closure and the mailhouses’ unexpected 2012 profits, but somewhere, there’s an environmentalist crying about the forests that Chen and Royce destroyed.

On a final note, my father’s siding with the family Republicans: Dad’s voting for Royce.

The mere suggestion that Brian Chuchua might one day get endorsed by Tait was enough to get the Central Committee to vote to endorse Chuchua with an amazing 72.5% of the vote.

Reading about the discussion on the Anaheim endorsement, it was clear that Mayor Tait’s endorsement was the single most important item of discussion in Chuchua’s endorsement request.

What’s also amazing is that Tait has received little blowback from the anti-union Republican Party for endorsing the union-backed John Leos for Anaheim City Council. This is a sign of the great esteem in which Tait is held that Republicans are largely refusing to criticize Tait for doing what many other Republicans have been hanged, drawn and quartered for.

Why is Tait held in such high regard?

It is because, more than any other person, Tom Tait is the conscience of Orange County Republicans.

When the controversial TOT scheme was proposed, Harry Sidhu, Gail Eastman, and Kris Murray fell to big business pressure and Lorri Galloway fell to union pressure. While Galloway voted with him, Tait was the sole councilmember to truly stick to his principles. Tait is a true blue, limited government conservative.

Tom Tait had originally endorsed Steve Lodge, but when he saw Lodge was more of the same big business, TOT supporter type, Tait pulled his endorsement. When Lodge got raked over the coals by the Endorsements Committee, he realized Tait’s principles are the Republican Party’s principles, so Lodge withdrew his request for an endorsement.

That is the power of Tom Tait’s quiet conservative principles.

Anaheimers chose well when they elected Tom Tait as Mayor in 2010, and they did a service for all of Orange County when they elected this noble public servant.

Anaheim Councilwoman Lorri Galloway has been the toughest critic of the city’s deal with the GardenWalk project, under which Anaheim rebates 80% of the hotel project’s transient occupancy tax revenue back to the two hotels for 15 years. This is larger than the 50-50 TOT splits the city has done in the past with resort district hotels.

Galloway has denounced the GardenWalk deal as a “tax giveaway” and declares this is not “a good time to give $158 million of taxpayer money away to one developer.”

A few years ago, she thought it was a good idea to give tax money to a developer, far in excess of normal standards. This excerpt from a October 2008 post on a now-dormant blog called “No On Galloway” explains how when it came to an Anaheim affordable housing project called the Elm Street Commons, a different view of developer subsidies prevailed:

“It seems the funding on this project got a little creative. On November 28, 2006, SADI, the developer for Elm Street Commons, came to City Council to have their standard DDA approved through the Housing Authority. Standard practice in Anaheim is to give the developer money, to be paid back over time, 85% to the City, and the developer keep 15% as profit. The 85% is then recycled into more housing projects, which keeps Anaheim building apartments for the working poor. Whether you agree with building subsidized housing or not, it is an efficient system. In the development of the Elm Street Commons, the City offered many millions of dollars in direct funding, plus incentives added later such as a sewer project the developer decided the City should do. Rather than approve the otherwise ordinary deal, now-convicted-felon Richard Chavez pulled the development from the Consent Calendar, allowing discussion. In the end, the City Council, led by Chavez and backed by Lorri Galloway, changed the condition of the agreement, bumping the developer’s profit from the standard 15% to a whopping and unprecedented 50% profit for a private corporation!!”

Increasing the traditional 50-50 TOT split to 80-20 for one developer is a “tax giveaway.” But increasing the city-funded profit margin from 15% to 50% for another developer is legitimate?

The post continues:

“Why would Lorri Galloway take money from the very people she claims to champion? Perhaps the answer is in her Council statement, as she looked at the developer and admonished him, “I hope you acknowledge how much Council has been supportive of you.”

“Well the developers at Elm Street Commons sure did remember to acknowledge that 35% jump in their profits, funded by robbing Anaheim’s working poor. Again funneling money through PAC filings with Treasurer Kinde Durkee, who is frequently under investigation by the FPPC, a donation of $15,000 was made by Elm Street, which funded the Clear Channel billboards Lorri has all over the City. They also underwrote a large mailing, and the graphic arts for the mail piece.”

Credit goes to Meridian Pacific for posting these maps on their website.

Maybe she’s in Santa Ana because she wants to be Loretta Sanchez’s successor. That would make sense since Santa Ana is completely in CD-46. She’s sharing campaign offices with Sanchez, too. Maybe that’s what this AD-65 campaign really is about. She’s trying to raise her profile to run for CD-46. CD-46 doesn’t include Buena Park, Cypress, Fullerton, La Palma, or Stanton, by the way.

Maybe Quirk-Silva’s campaigning in Santa Ana because they’ll be friendlier to her pro-tax message there than they will be in AD-65. She must be supporting Governor Jerry Brown’s Prop 30 sales tax and income tax hike. Prop 30 will probably fail miserably in AD-65 but pass in Santa Ana. As Steve Sarkis pointed out in the OC Register, Quirk-Silva’s entire “ending partisan gridlock” argument is just code for increasing taxes. See Steve’s letter (third one down): http://letters.ocregister.com/2012/05/26/primary-distinctions-between-candidates/

Maybe Quirk-Silva’s campaigning in Santa Ana because she has as many Santa Ana City Councilmembers endorsing her as she does in all of AD-65. She has four Santa Ana Councilmembers endorsing her (David Benavides, Michele Martinez, Sal Tinajero, and Vince Sarmiento). Of the four AD-65 Councilmembers endorsing Quirk-Silva (Anaheim’s Lorri Galloway, Fullerton’s Doug Chaffee, and tiny La Palma’s Ralph Rodriguez and Steve Shanahan), Galloway can’t even vote for her since she lives in AD-68 (Anaheim is split into AD-65, AD-68, and AD-69). By the way, Norby has 21 endorsements from AD-65 City Councilmembers.

Maybe Quirk-Silva’s campaigning in Santa Ana because she’ll hope it’ll get the Assembly Dem leadership’s attention by pretending to run in a Dem city like Santa Ana. I wrote a couple weeks ago in my post “Leading Assembly Democrat Headlines Norby Fundraiser” that “She isn’t endorsed by the Speaker or the Assembly Majority Leader either. It looks like the Democrat leadership is abandoning Quirk-Silva.”

Anaheim Councilwoman Gail Eastman really stepped in it after the recent Anaheim riots. According to the Voice of OC article Eastman declared that, “In spite of how it happened, it was a big time win for all who opposed seeing that placed on the November ballot.” Regardless of how this might have been taken out of context it should not have been said. Eastman is referring to the Anaheim TOT item that was potentially going to be placed on the ballot which I will explain later.

Eastman is the one Councilmember that currently does not live in East Anaheim. Chris Nguyen and Emami constantly refer to this region as Anaheim Hills despite their being no such geographic region as Anaheim Hills. She was elected back in 2008 coming in as the top vote getter over Kris Murray who was also elected out of a field of 14 candidates.

Since I do not actually live in Anaheim I took the opportunity to watch the Council meeting online and was amazed at how much stuff was actually being discussed during public comment. The recent police shootings, Anaheim TOT, and creating districts for City Council elections. Watching the Councilmembers it felt like they were going to get whiplash from all the bouncing around of items during the public comment period.

I felt that most commenters on the Anaheim shootings were professional in the way they laid out their concerns to what is obviously a very frustrating issue for many people in the community. The real problem was the idiots outside of th meeting that were instigating violence. It helped that Tom Tait announced at the beginning of the meeting that the U.S. Attorneys office would be conducting an independent investigation into the actions by the Anaheim Police Department (Hey Fullerton, how do you like them apples).

The second issue up for discussion was the Transient Occupancy Tax discussion over the hotel developer that got a huge subsidy to build a hotel in the Garden Walk area. It appears that a lot of organized labor came out in support of Councilmembers Sidhu, Eastman, and Murray. Due to the riots outside shortening the meeting this item was unable to be voted on (placing it on the ballot). This was the item that Eastman commented on and got herself into hot water.

Creating wards in Anaheim wat the third item that was discussed by people during public comment and it was an absolute circus. The majority of people speaking on the need for wards did not appear to actually live in Anaheim it appeared to mostly be the LULAC crowd that comes to all the meetings to speak when LULAC runs their drill. Although some speakers from Anaheim spoke in a very passionate way as to why Anaheim needed to draw wards for representation purposes others came across as for lack of a better term “Latino Supremacists.” Due to the rioting outside this item was also unable to be placed on the ballot for November.

Eastman clearly did not help her cause but in reality the rioters outside of the meeting are the ones that cost the residents of Anaheim the ability to vote on 2 items that I believe they should have had the opportunity to vote on.

It has been brought to my attention that some misinformed people are pushing for a system that would separate Anaheim into different wards for the City Council races. I will disclose up front that I am a resident of Anaheim Hills and an appointed member of the Anaheim Housing Commission. The concept of putting wards in place is simply a waste of time and resources.

Only 3 other Cities use a Ward system in Orange County (Santa Ana, Newport Beach, and Seal Beach) and Santa Ana has a bizarre system where the entire City votes for the Councilmembers despite the fact that they have to live in the wards.

Anaheim currently has 4 members of the Council (including the Mayor) that live in Anaheim Hills and one minority on the Council. These members were all fairly elected to the Council by the entire City, whether you like them or not they and according to the 2010 Orange County Registrar of Voters Statement of Votes Kris Murray, Gail Eastman, and Tom Tait all won the area covered by the Anaheim Union High School District (http://www.ocvote.com/fileadmin/user_upload/sov/gen2010/sov-web.pdf).

Lets take a look back at the winning candidates for Anaheim City Council/Mayor going back to 2002:

These numbers show that both candidates from Anaheim Hills and the flatlands win races for the City Council and Mayor. It is not some conspiracy that has been put together to keep candidates on the City Council that only live in Anaheim Hills as 2010-2012 is the only time frame i the past 10 years where we have seen 4 Councilmembers living in Anaheim Hills.

Voters should have a right to vote for the best candidates running for City Council regardless of where they live and what race that they are. In my opinion this not only should be the rule for Anaheim but any City including Santa Ana, Seal Beach, and Newport Beach.

Arguably the 2 front-runners for Anaheim City Council in November are Lucille Kring and Steve Chavez-Lodge (neither on lives in Anaheim Hills). Much like the stock market Councilmembers in terms of where they live are cyclical. Sometimes candidates from the flatlands win and other times candidates from the hills win.

I can’t believe that I am saying this but one of the better articles that I have seen on statistical reasoning against switching to a ward system comes from Gustavo Arellano at the OC Weekly who penned this http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2012/06/aclu_anaheim_lawsuit_latinos.php. He and I may not agree on much in terms of policy but he absolutely hit it out of the park with this story even though I don’t agree with some of the ways he expressed his position in the article.

Hopefully the system in Anaheim stays the same and we can continue to simply vote for candidates that will represent all of Anaheim not just their specific wards.